8 Bit Dreams is Campbell Whyte's ongoing series of tiny watercolor illustrations of EVERY SINGLE NES GAME. The originals (and reprints too) are available for sale in his Etsy store, and the entire archive can be seen at http://www.campbellwhyte.com.

Sorry I'm a little late with this week's installment. Been a bit late with a lot of things...of late. Must be the season. Or it is just this nasty FUNK I am in. Yeah, another one of those. Hate that shit.

It isn't that things are too terribly bad either. It is just time for Funkytown.

And not the good kind.

So I found this thing the other day, and figured I'd shoot it for another episode of A Closet Full of Crap. Like I love to remind you all, I chose that title because I have a Basement Full of Shit, but A Closet Full of Crap sounds much better.

Although, that Basement Full of Shit is fast becoming a Basement Full of Mildew and Decaying Sections of Rotten Wood as This House Built by Apes Falls Down Around My Ears...but hey, that's a story for another time.

Hey Fruitless Pursuers! Long time no see! I could make a lot of excuses about that, but let's just say sorry folks and move right along.

So, I've been trying for a while to think of something I can write about consistently, once a week or so here at Fruitless Pursuits. "Self," I thought, "what do I do once a week that people at this web site would be interested in?" Then I realized, "oh yes that's right, I buy COMICS!" Good work brain!

You may remember back in September I was (still am!) very excited about the DC Universe relaunch with the new 52. I even wrote an article about it HERE. Well, I didn't reading stop at #1's. Every Wednesday I go to my local comic store and buy my favourite titles. So starting now, every week between Wednesdays, I'm gonna talk about the comics I bought that week. First up, ACTION COMICS #4! Read all about it after the jump:

When it comes to getting involved in a new fandom or interest, often the entry can be paralyzing. For every Firefly with a season, a movie, and a few books, there's a Doctor Who with nearly a dozen Doctors and entire lost episodes. With the sustained popularity of HP Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, especially on the internet, trying to navigate your way through the muddy waters of the Miskatonic isn't going to be as easy as someone simply handing you a copy of The Necronomicon at a nearby coffee shop. So, in celebration of, uh, Cthulhumas, here's a quick and dirty on Lovecraft and the Mythos to get you started on your long dark road to insanity!

Ladies and gentlemen, as the title says: Tintin will take all your moneyz. All of it. And you will give it over gladly, still completely bedazzled and thrilled from the spectacle you have just been witness to. I have just returned from a preview screening of this latest Spielberg offering, not to mention the first full length movie adaptation of my first childhood love, and all I can say is - great snakes.

Each year, Kidrobot offers a Christmas themed Dunny (which is cool enough), and then each year Kidrobot offers an awesome sale with said Dunny (which is even cooler!).

Here is Crusty by Frank Kozik.

As with all blind packaging, there is a chance to get something much rarer, and in this case, (SPOILERS) it's just the head in a puddle. I have all of the Christmas Dunnys but I've never been lucky enough to get a variant. Maybe this year, Santa?

Cooperative games are a chaotic mess. More often than not there is a shared goal where players are supposed to come together and work as one in order to win. A few cooperative games do this well, like Pandemic or Forbidden island, and to an extent the D&D board games unified goal of "Get 'em" works for it. So much i happening all at once that it can be hard to keep track of what is happening, especially when players get to choose 2 or 3 actions from a list of like 40 things that they get to do during their turn. Yet through it all, everyone is on the same page, they do it up, and in the end its usually a pretty fun time, win or loose, because we're in it together. The shared experience, its what mom always wanted, where you play nice with your brother and sister and everyone has fun.

A few years ago I stumbled across Letters of Note, and I was instantly blown away. Shaun Usher (the creator) gathered up many, many images of handwritten and typed letters that were either famous, b famous people, or simply just wonderful on their own. If you haven't checked out the site, http://www.lettersofnote.com, go do it now. You will probably spend the next few hours there. The "most read" list on the right is a good place to start.

Yesterday (December 6) Microsoft released its newest update for the Xbox 360 dashboard which has completely shaken things up in regards to how it looks, feels, organized, and even operates. Originally slated for at 10am EST release, there were naturally some glitches that meant delays. Well, after a 14 hour delay I was able to get the download. yeah, it's pretty different

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Anyone who has ever been to my apartment knows that I buy entirely too many
movies. Every Tuesday, I find myself scouring Amazon's list of new releases,
looking to see what new gems are available for me to spend my hard-earned
dollar on...and more often than not, I find stuff! So, in my rethinking and trying
to come up with posts I could do on a more regular basis, it occurred to me
that maybe it would be cool to do a list of stuff that I think is cool that is
coming out "this week". I figure we'll give it a shot and see how it
goes. I know lots of sites do this kind of "what's out"-type lists,
Ive's even been doing a comic book one for us, but I think it's worth a shot.
Obviously, I can't list everything that's coming out, but I'll try to hit what
I think are the highlights. I'll give you my reasons, and then you can tell me
why I'm wrong at the end. Amazon links for each title will be in the title for the movie, but feel free to buy stuff anywhere...it's just convenient. Because I talk a lot, I'm going to put the list behind the jump.

I did not receive this most memorable gift. It's one that I gave it to my daughter for her second Christmas. I mean... Santa gave it to her.

It's Kota the Dinosaur! He moves around and makes noises, and is just plain awesome. I had my eye on him all season. And while normally $150-$200, I scored him for just $50 at Target right before Christmas.

Nowadays, Kota is hanging out in our basement. But everytime we go down there, my daughter still wants to ride on top of him and feed him leaves. I bet you wish you had a dinosaur in your basement.

It's that most wondeful time of the week. Maybe your work Chritmas party is on and you quickly need to get something for your Secret Santa but the only thing close is a comic shop. Let me tell you your options:

Monday, December 5, 2011

Minecraft Lego has not been announced, but developer Mojang is definitely pushing to make it an actual product. And they should because it would be a perfect partnership. Imagine building your world on your computer and then duplicating it in your home. If you had the parts, you could kind of do it now... but with Lego's support, could you imagine exporting an area from the game to your computer and then being able to order it right there? (you are also mega-rich in this scenario)

Mojang created the above Lego design and it's currently up on http://lego.cuusoo.com. Cuusoo is a Lego partner site where people submit future set ideas. If an idea hits 10,000 votes, they'll go on to Lego for review. Along with Mojang's design is another Minecraft set by koalaexpert, so I'm kind of confused on whether they are competing for votes, or cornering the market by loading up the front page with Minecraft set ideas. Either way, they're both pretty awesome!

Click through the jump for more Lego Minecraft concepts by Mojang, koala expert and superMacho.

To start, an apology. I haven't been around to post much of late. It's been busy. But I'm back now, and one of the things I've been doing in my time away is re-thinking slightly how I go about making posts on here. With any luck that means you'll be seeing more of me around here now...we'll see if that actually happens.

Now to business. If you've somehow found your way to the wonder that is Fruitless Pursuits, you're likely at least a little geeky. If you're even a little geeky, there's a pretty good chance you've heard of Joss Whedon. He's the creator of things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and Firefly. He's also directing what may just be the biggest nerd-thing of 2012, The Avengers. But that's not the only thing coming out in 2012 with Whedon's name on it.

Meet Cabin in the Woods. Co-written by Whedon and Cloverfield's Drew Goddard, and directed by Goddard, it promises to be a different take on...well...the old trope of the "cabin in the woods". The MAKING of the movie has its own sordid details. It was actually filmed in 2009 but was delayed when MGM, who produced the movie, ran into financial ruin. Okay, that's not really sordid so much as it is sad. Bright side, it also delayed the Red Dawn remake (Wolverines!), which according to rumor was actually pretty awful. The point is that the movie is now, finally, set to come out on April 13th, 2012 (in the US at least, not sure about elsewhere) and one of the bigger pieces of news on the internet today was that they've released the first trailer!!

That trailer, the poster, and maybe a little more discussion after the jump...

This week's Kickstarter project is very close to home for me. The card game, LangGuini, was initially created by my good friends in Island Officials earlier this year at the Philly Game Jam. I was there to see the initial excitement (my favorite part of ANY project) and then much later I was able to help out with the Inspirational Expansions (must have bonus cards that theme the game... more on this below).

After a strange day and an equally stranger post yesterday, we are back and we are awesome. Plus, today defies logic and presents us with an actual known thing! and not just any known thing - a really awesome known thing that is awesome.

As a child I was all about the toys (not a huge amount has changed) and clothing or music seemed like pretty crappy Christmas presents. All that changed, however, in 1984 when, on Christmas Day, I was gifted the two following memorable items:

And yes! That is the Ghostbusters soundtrack on classic cassette! A luxury convenience in a world where, if you wanted to hear a specific song, you would have to listen to the radio all day and hope for the best. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first cassette I owned.

Back then, the whole planet was gripped by Ghostbusters fever, and maybe it was the fact that they had not made any toys at this stage that made the few available items of merchandise so desirable. Owning a Ghostbusters logo T-shirt was a rite of passage in 1984 and it would be hard-pressed to find any teenager or child alive at that time that didn't have one. It was just like how every single person in the world was required to own a Batman symbol T-shirt in 1989.

At tender age of eight Ghostbusters still kind of scared the crap out of me, but rest assured I still wore that shirt with pride. It was one of my four favourite childhood items of clothing, alongside a silver vinyl jacket, a white sweatshirt with Garfield on it, and a black sweatshirt covered in puffy neon space invaders. The eighties were a stylish time.

I'm a big fan of the 'cute' lines of toys that have come out in the last few years, such as as the Star Wars Galactic Heroes line & the Marvel Super Hero Squad line, so I was pretty excited to see the new 'beefed up' line of DC Super Friends in Toys R Us last week. All the lines have gone down the same track of making their figures a bit bigger and more poseable, and Fisher Price have turned it up to 11 by making their figures TWICE as big and including some kickass accessories. They've also ventured into the 'Little People' range with a few mini figures and some wheely cars.

You know, not everyone is into those games you buy for $100 and then waste several weeks of your life on, and that's OKAY! Welcome to GFTROU aka 'Games For The Rest Of Us' (seriously, if anyone has a better suggestion that has a less ridiculous acronym, I am ALL EARS). I'm going to mainly be checking out iPhone/iPad games, smaller Steam releases and some of the downloadable content from the PSN. I have completed maybe 5 games in my entire life and get bored of things very quickly, so casual gaming is right up my alley. First up this week? The 'Puss In Boots' Fruit Ninja spin-off from Halfbrick Studios.

Angry teen Anakin and sassmouth sidekick Ahsoka return today in Slaves of the Republic, the second part of the OH NOES, SLAVERY!!1 trilogy. When we last saw our heroes, a whole colony of Togruta had been kidnapped, your maiden aunt Obi Wan Kenobi had just had the shite beaten out of him by badass Slaver Wolverine, and Anakin unleashed his frustrations on a tentacle rape beast. Will the action continue to ramp up this week? Will Anakin, haunted by his childhood as a Toydarian sex slave, totally lose his shit? What we do know in advance is that Ahsoka is rockin' a new slave outfit and now lives in a cage.